DOCSLIB.ORG

Oxford DNB Article: Playfair, William

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Oxford DNB Article: Playfair, William Oxford DNB article: Playfair, William http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/printable/22370 Playfair, William (1759-1823), inventor of statistical graphs and writer on political economy by Ian Spence © Oxford University Press 2004 All rights reserved Playfair, William (1759-1823), inventor of statistical graphs and writer on political economy, was born on 22 September 1759 at the manse, Liff, near Dundee, the fifth of eight children of the Revd James Playfair (1712–1772), of the parish of Liff and Benvie, and Margaret Young (1719/20–1805). Much of his early education was the responsibility of his brother John Playfair (1748-1819), who was later to become professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Edinburgh University. William married Mary Morris, probably in 1779, and they had two sons and three daughters between 1780 and 1792. In 1786 and 1801, Playfair invented three fundamental forms of statistical graph—the time-series line graph, the bar chart, and the pie chart—and he did so without significant precursors. Hence he is the creator of all the basic styles of graph with the exception of the scatterplot, which did not appear until the end of the nineteenth century. A few examples of line graphs precede Playfair, but these are mostly representations of theoretical functions with data superimposed and are conspicuous by their isolation. His contributions to the development of statistical graphics remain his life's signal accomplishment. Although this work was received with indifference, he rightly never faltered in his conviction that he had found the best way to display empirical data. In the two centuries since, there has been no appreciable improvement on his designs. Playfair was uniquely prepared by education and circumstances for these innovations. He was apprenticed (1774–7) under Andrew Meikle, millwright to the Rennie family, at the Houston Mill on the Phantassie estate, near East Linton. The fourth son of the family, John Rennie, was a fellow engineer-in-training. Thereafter, Playfair was taken on by Boulton and Watt in Birmingham, spending much of his tenure (1777–81) working in James Watt's house at Harper's Hill, preparing and copying drawings of the steam engines. Playfair idolized his master and wrote of him (1819) with admiration on Watt's death. Playfair was acquainted with the members of the Lunar Society, including Joseph 1 of 5 27/09/2004 9:10 AM Oxford DNB article: Playfair, William http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/printable/22370 Priestley, whose chronological diagrams inspired the bar chart, and James Keir. Playfair and Keir were associates in the company formed to market Watt's copying machine, but this venture had little success. Between 1781 and 1785 Playfair applied for and obtained four patents for working metals, elaborations of the methods previously developed at the Soho manufactory of Boulton and Watt. Keir disputed the originality, believing that his own ideas had been appropriated, and there was an acrimonious breach. Towards the end of 1781 Playfair left Boulton and Watt with William Wilson, a co-worker, to set up as silversmiths and platemakers in Marylebone, Middlesex. The partnership did not prosper; large debts were run up and the enterprise foundered. An often-to-be-repeated pattern of grand purpose, conflict with others, suspicion of wrongdoing, and ultimate business failure was thus established. Playfair started to write about economics in the Regulation of the Interest of Money (1785); he wrote both for gain and from conviction. His several subsequent books and pamphlets on economics include one of the first critical editions (1805) of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. It contained sharp criticism of Smith's ideas together with supplementary material to bring the work up to date, but this edition was not well received. Although a preliminary manuscript circulated privately in the previous year, Playfair's Commercial and Political Atlas of 1786 was the first publication to contain statistical charts. The Atlas was devoted to an examination of English trade during the eighteenth century. Though modelled on the familiar geographical atlas, it contained no maps. It was unusual in format: the layout was landscape and the charts were mostly foldouts, two to three times larger than the volume itself. In the charts, Playfair plotted pounds sterling against time in forty-four time-series line graphs. The book also contained a solitary bar chart, an oddity made necessary because he did not have sufficient data to construct a line graph. Ironically, this was the only graph not to include time as a dimension despite the inspiration of Priestley's (1765) chronological charts. Playfair sought forgiveness for the shortcoming: ‘This Chart … does not comprehend any portion of time, and it is much inferior in utility to those that do’ (Playfair, Atlas, 101). The graphs in the Atlas differ little from those in use today: hachure, shading, colour coding, and grids with major and minor divisions were employed. The charts were used to depict actual, missing, and hypothetical data, the various forms being differentiated by the kind of line used, solid or broken. In addition to functional variation, many charts emphasized area, indicating accumulated or total amounts. All included a descriptive title in the body of the chart and labelling of the axes. The first and second editions contained the numerical data—inserted at James Watt's urging—but by the third edition Playfair had sufficient confidence to discard the 2 of 5 27/09/2004 9:10 AM Oxford DNB article: Playfair, William http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/printable/22370 tables. As he certainly did in later publications, Playfair probably engraved the lines on the copper printing plates himself, drawing on his experience as an engineer. Despite isolated critical favour, this foray into publishing and economics earned Playfair neither riches nor reputation and he left for Paris in 1787. English industry and commerce were in the vanguard and Playfair believed that he would be well placed to profit in a France striving to industrialize. His new aim was to establish a rolling mill in the style of Boulton and Watt. Although Louis XVI himself approved the plan, nothing came of it, and Playfair abandoned engineering for the world of enterprise. Playfair entered into a partnership with Joel Barlow, lawyer, sometime poet, and Parisian representative of the American Scioto Land Company. The bungled efforts of the Scioto partners to make their fortunes and to establish a colony of French settlers on the Ohio River in 1789–91 is a fascinating episode in early American history, the full story of which will probably never be told. The enterprise involved distinguished figures of the American War of Independence and Playfair's participation is a quirk of history. Suspected of embezzlement in the collapse, he was subsequently involved in other legal entanglements before leaving France shortly before the terror of 1793. Playfair spent the years between 1793 and 1814 in London, with occasional trips to the continent. He attempted to emulate the freewheeling schemes he had seen succeed in revolutionary Paris, but without success. Playfair narrowly escaped prosecution by the Bank of England in 1797 in connection with a bank that he and Jan Caspar Hartsinck had established. He continued to write, his eventual output numbering over one hundred books and pamphlets. He co-edited a daily paper, The Tomahawk, that lasted but 113 issues, and also a weekly, Anticipation, that endured no longer. He inevitably fell back on engineering, working as a gun-carriage maker, and supplemented his income by dubious means. One swindle led to conviction at the court of king's bench in 1805. During this period, Playfair published several tracts that included graphs, the most notable being Lineal Arithmetic (1798) and Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations (1805). In the Statistical Breviary (1801), he introduced the circle diagram and pie chart that used area to represent the relative sizes of geographical regions. In 1809–11 he published his massive British Family Antiquity (9 vols.), which contained illustrations and chronological diagrams; hopes of money were clearly the driving force. Playfair's charts were not readily accepted, especially in Britain. This may be ascribed to a resistance to illustration in scientific writing, technical difficulties of 3 of 5 27/09/2004 9:10 AM Oxford DNB article: Playfair, William http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/printable/22370 production and publication, and concerns regarding accuracy that were not eased by Playfair's occasional carelessness and his less than reputable personal standing. He was received more kindly in Germany and France, gaining widespread approval, from the professional geographer Alexander von Humboldt to the amateur Louis XVI, in whose opinion the charts ‘spoke all languages and were very clear and easily understood’ (Playfair, unpublished MS, 1822–3). The charts started to catch on in Britain, by reverse diffusion, more than fifty years after their conception there. Yet, even as late as the early twentieth century, Playfair's role in the invention of statistical graphs was little known. Playfair returned to France after the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy but his proneness to disputation soon made him unwelcome and he moved back to London. In his remaining years, he seems to have lost enthusiasm and energy for the ‘grand scheme’. Life cannot have been easy for one accustomed to seeing large sums come and go in the speculations of his middle years. In 1816 he descended to extortion when he attempted to broker the sale, to Lord Archibald Douglas, of papers alleged to relate to the Douglas cause of half a century earlier. The documents almost certainly never existed and the blackmail did not succeed. In the same year, he used a similar tactic to procure a ‘loan’ from his fellow former apprentice John Rennie, by this time celebrated for Waterloo Bridge and other familiar constructions.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Mathematics Is a Gentleman's Art: Analysis and Synthesis in American College Geometry Teaching, 1790-1840 Amy K
    Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2000 Mathematics is a gentleman's art: Analysis and synthesis in American college geometry teaching, 1790-1840 Amy K. Ackerberg-Hastings Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the Higher Education and Teaching Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, and the Science and Mathematics Education Commons Recommended Citation Ackerberg-Hastings, Amy K., "Mathematics is a gentleman's art: Analysis and synthesis in American college geometry teaching, 1790-1840 " (2000). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 12669. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/12669 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margwis, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. in the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted.
    [Show full text]
  • John Playfair (1748-1819)
    EARLY DISCOVERERS XV A FORGOTTEN PIONEER OF THE GLACIAL THEORY JOHN PLAYFAIR (1748-1819) By LoUIs SEYLAZ (Lausanne) IT is surprising that the first idea of a glacial epoch during which the Alpine glaciers spread over the centre of Europe was put forward by a man who had not been outside Great Britain and had never seen either the Alps or a glacier. The son of a Scottish clergyman, John Playfair began his career by studying theology; but he later developed an overwhelming interest in science. In 1785 he became Professor of Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh, and in 1805 he gave up his chair of Mathe­ matics for that of Natural Philosophy. After the death of the celebrated geologist James Hutton, Playfair, who had been his pupil and later became his colleague at the University of Edinburgh, was given the task of making known Hutton's ideas, and this he did in Illustrations of the Huttonian theory, Edinburgh, 1802, a work which brought him great fame in the world of learned men and which is still considered to be the basis of modern geology. But while the exposition of Hutton's theories only takes up 140 pages of the book, Playfair devotes 388 pages of notes to the completion and the explanation of those theories. In 1779 Volume 1 of Voyages dans les Alpes, by Horace-Benedict de Saussure, had appeared at Neuchatel. In it the author makes a study of the geological terrain around Geneva. After pointing out the fact that the whole country, not only the banks of the Lake of Geneva but also the slopes of the Saleve and the sides of the Jura which face the Alps, are scattered with fragments of rocks, he states that "the majority of these stones are of granite ..
    [Show full text]
  • Mary Somerville's Vision of Science
    Mary Somerville’s vision of science James Secord Citation: Physics Today 71, 1, 46 (2018); doi: 10.1063/PT.3.3817 View online: https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3817 View Table of Contents: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/toc/pto/71/1 Published by the American Institute of Physics ARTICLES YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN Earth’s skin is an interdisciplinary laboratory Physics Today 71, 22 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3813 Crystal growth in ice and snow Physics Today 71, 34 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3844 Commentary: Thinking differently about science and religion Physics Today 71, 10 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3831 Gender matters Physics Today 71, 40 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3870 Discovering Earth’s radiation belts Physics Today 70, 46 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3791 The relentless pursuit of hypersonic flight Physics Today 70, 30 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3762 MARY SOMERVILLE (1780–1872), mathematician and writer. Portait by Thomas Phillips (1834). James Secord is a professor of the history and philosophy of science at the University of Cambridge in the UK. This article is adapted from his book, Visions of Science: Books and Readers at the Dawn of the Victorian Age (2014). Mary Somerville’s vision of science James Secord The Scottish mathematician and writer shaped the way we think about science and carved a place for herself in the intellectual world of the 19th century. n 1834 mathematician and author Mary Somerville published On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, a work that was instrumental in the making of modern physics as a discipline.
    [Show full text]
  • H-France Review Vol. 18 (August 2018), No. 173 Bruce Berkowitz
    H-France Review Volume 18 (2018) Page 1 H-France Review Vol. 18 (August 2018), No. 173 Bruce Berkowitz, Playfair: The True Story of the British Secret Agent Who Changed How We See the World. Fairfax, VA: George Mason University Press, 2018. Xxiv + 477 pp. Maps, tables, figures, appendices, notes, and index. $34.85 U.S. (cl). ISBN 9781942695042. Review by Anna Plassart, The Open University. William Playfair is not a household name. He is probably best known for having first devised a way to represent numbers visually: he invented the graph, as well as the bar and pie charts. Historians of economic thought may know him as the man who produced the first critical edition of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) in 1805. But his name also pops up in studies of the British reception of the French Revolution: he was one of a number of Brits who spent time in Paris in the late 1780s and early 1790s, fled the Terror, and published their accounts of the revolutionary events. Bruce Berkowitz pulls all these threads (and many more) together in the first biography dedicated to this engineer, economist, pamphleteer, businessman and philosopher, and he demonstrates that there was much more to Playfair than history books would suggest. As it turns out, Playfair also led an altogether different, and more cloak and dagger-esque life. Perhaps before all else, he was an adventurer who was seemingly involved in every major crisis to befall Great Britain, France, and the United States of America in the late eighteenth century.
    [Show full text]
  • Communion Tokens of the Established Church of Scotland -Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries
    V. COMMUNION TOKENS OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH OF SCOTLAND -SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. BY ALEXANDER J. S. BROOK, F.S.A. SCOT. o morn Ther s e familiawa e r objec Scotlann i t d fro e Reformatiomth n down to half a century ago than the Communion token, but its origin cannot be attributed to Scotland, nor was it a post-Reformation institution. e antiquitTh d universalitan y e toke th e unquestionable f ar no y . From very early times it is probable that a token, or something akin uses aln wa di l , toath-bounoit d secret societies. They will be found to have been used by the Greeks and Romans, whose tesserae were freely utilise r identifyinfo d gbeed ha thos no ewh initiated inte Eleusiniath o d othean n r kindred mysteries n thii d s an , s easilwa yy mannepavewa r thei e fo dth rr introduction e intth o Christian Church, where they wer e purposeth use r f excludinfo do e g the uninitiated and preventing the entrance of spies into the religious gatherings which were onl yselece opeth o tnt few. Afte persecutioe th r n cease whicho dt measurea n e i ,b y , ma thei e us r attributed, they would naturally continu e use b o distinguist do t e h between those who had a right to be present at meetings and those who had not. Tokens are unquestionably an old Catholic tradition, and their use Churce on t confiner countryy o no h an s o t wa d.
    [Show full text]
  • John Playfair 7 June 1820 at Edinburgh the Sevent
    Testament of John Playfair SC70/1/21 pp.658-9 John Playfair SC70/1/21 [p.659] John Playfair 7 June 1820 At Edinburgh the seventh day of June Eighteen hundred and twenty years the following Inventory of the personal Estate of John Playfair deceased & Deed relative to the disposal of thereof were presented by Mr Richard Prentice Solicitor at Law Inventory of the personal or moveable Estate of the deceased Mr John Playfair professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, who died at Edinburgh on the 20th day of July 1819 given up to be recorded in the Commissary Court Books of Edinburgh in terms of Law by Miss Margaret Playfair Sister of the deceased, and one of the Executors nominated to him by his last will and Testamentary Disposition 1 Cash in the house ___ £40..-..- 2 Sum due to the deceased by Sir William Forbes Hunter [p.661] and Company including interest to the time of his decease ___ 2342..10..5 The amount of the appropriated value of the Household furniture Plate Linen and China ___ 250..7..6 4 D[itt]o D[itt]o Books & Maps ___ 300..-..- 5 Do. Do. Wearing apparel ___ 15..-..- 6 Do. Do. The deceaseds Watch ___ 15..-..- 6 Do. Do. Mathematical Instruments 100..-..- 8 Amount of Salary due to the deceased as professor in the university of Edinburgh, and pension from the Crown Together 51..-..- 9 Half pay due to the deceased as Chaplain of the 83[r]d Regiment 107..10..5 10 Value of one share in the astronomical institution ___ 26..5..- 11 Sum due to the deceased by Bell and Bradfute Booksellers Edinburgh for and Edition
    [Show full text]
  • Scottish Scientific Heroes from the East Coast
    © JSR 2007 Scottish Scientific Heroes from the East Coast Dr John S. Reid Department of Physics, Fraser Noble Building, University of Aberdeen, ABERDEEN AB24 3UE (Based on a talk given to the ASE in Dundee early in the year 2000) It might not sound like it but one of my credentials for taking on this topic is that my ancestors are firmly embedded in the North-East of Scotland. However, you know the thrust of traditional Aberdeen humour. One such joke runs like this: “In the old days Scotsmen emigrated to London, now they are being born there, to save the expense of railway travelling.” I'm one of the Scots who was born there. Well, it was an accident of circumstances. Joseph Black, the great, dour, Scottish Chemist who invented the ever-useful concepts of specific heat capacity and latent heat, was born in Bordeaux in the South of France. If a Frenchman of Irish extraction can pass himself off as a Scot, so can I. “What is fame?” asked one of my colleagues. Fame is partly being in the right place at the right time, and doing a little too! My first hero is Mary Somerville. She has an island named after her. If you look on the map of the frozen wastes of the North West Territories in Canada, amongst Dundas Bay, Melville Island and other evidence of Scots involvement in the exciting days of Arctic exploration around the 1820s, you may find it - Somerville Island. Her story is that she was introduced to the explorer Edward Parry and his small expedition fleet not long before they set off to look again for the North West passage.
    [Show full text]
  • "Our Language Is the Forest": Landscapes of the Mother Tongue in David Greig's Dunsinane
    Trinity University Digital Commons @ Trinity English Faculty Research English Department 2021 "Our Language is the Forest": Landscapes of the Mother Tongue in David Greig's Dunsinane Kathryn Vomero Santos Trinity University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/eng_faculty Repository Citation Santos, K. V. (2021). "Our language is the forest": Landscapes of the mother tongue in David Greig's Dunsinane. Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation, 13(2), 1-18. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English Department at Digital Commons @ Trinity. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Faculty Research by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Trinity. For more information, please contact [email protected]. "Our language is the forest": Landscapes of the Mother Tongue in David Greig's Dunsinane Kathryn Vomero Santos, Trinity University Abstract Tracing early visits to and excavations of Dunsinane Hill in Perthshire, Scotland, this essay argues that Shakespeare and the overpowering legacy of his "Scottish play" have left an imprint that is both ecological and ideological. Situated within broader conversations about cultural heritage, literary tourism, colonialism, and nationalism, my analysis of Shakespeare's indelible mark on Dunsinane Hill —as a place and an idea—provides a theoretical and literal groundwork for understanding how Scottish playwright David Greig activates the territorial lexicon of appropriation in his 2010 play Dunsinane. For Greig, the act of appropriation is not just about speaking back to Shakespeare but about doing so on land that was never his and in a language that he never understood in the first place.
    [Show full text]
  • STAT 6560 Graphical Methods
    STAT 6560 Graphical Methods Spring Semester 2009 Project Work James B. Odei Utah State University Department of Mathematics and Statistics 3900 Old Main Hill Logan, UT 84322{3900 WILLIAM PLAYFAIR (1759-1823) A Graphical Pioneer of the 18th Century Citations: How others rate William Playfair . • \the father of modern graphical display" - (Wainer (2005), p. 5) • \the great pioneer of statistical graphics" - (Playfair (2005), p. v) • \the founder of graphical methods of statistics"-(http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/William_Playfair) • \the inventor of statistical graphs and writer on political economy" - (Spence (2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/printable/22370) • \the pioneer of information graphics"-(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_ Henry_Playfair) • \an engineer, political economist and scoundrel" - (Spence and Wainer in Statis- ticians of the Centuries, http://bibleproupdate2.com/Definitions/William_ Playfair) • \an ingenious mechanic and miscellaneous writer" - (Eminent Scotsmen, http: //bibleproupdate2.com/Definitions/William_Playfair) Brief background • Born on September 22, 1759. • Was the fourth son of the Reverend James Playfair of the parish of Liff & Benvie near the city of Dundee, Scotland. • Much of his early education was the responsibility of his brother John Playfair (1748-1819), a professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Edinburgh University. • He pursued variety of careers with such passion, ambition, industry, and optimism that even without his great innovations he would be judged a colorful figure. 1 • He was in turn apprenticed (1774-1747) under Andrew Meikle(inventor of the threshing machine ), millwright to the Rennie family, draftsman for James Watt (inventor of the steam engine), engineer, accountant, inventor, silversmiths, mer- chant, investment broker, economist, statistician, pamphleteer, translator, pub- licist, land speculator, convict, banker, ardent royalist, editor, blackmailer, and journalist.
    [Show full text]
  • William Wallace and the Introduction of Continental Calculus to Britain: a Letter to George Peacock
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Elsevier - Publisher Connector HISTORIA MATHEMATICA 14 (1987), 119-132 William Wallace and the Introduction of Continental Calculus to Britain: A Letter to George Peacock M. PANTEKI Middlesex Polytechnic, Queensway, EnJield, Middlesex EN3 4SF, United Kingdom Little is known about William Wallace’ work and even less about his attempts to intro- duce Continental calculus to Britain in the early 19th century. A letter written by him to George Peacock in 1833 reveals many interesting facts concerning his role in the reform of British mathematics. This paper presents a brief account of his life and work and the full text of the letter, and proposes that Wallace’ contributions deserve to be acknowledged. o 1987 Academic Press, Inc. Wenig ist tiber das Werk von William Wallace bekannt und noch weniger tiber seine Versuche, den kontinentalen Infinitesimalkalktil im frtihen 19. Jahrhundert nach Britannien einzuRihren. Ein Brief, den er 1833 an George Peacock schrieb, deckt viele interessante Tatsachen auf, die seine Rolle bei der Reform der britischen Mathematik betreffen. Dieser Aufsatz gibt eine kurze Darstelhmg seines Lebens und Werks und den vollstandigen Text des Briefes und bitt daftir ein, daO die Beitrage von Wallace verdienen anerkannt zu werden. 0 1987 Academic Press, Inc. On ne sait qu’un peu sur l’oeuvre de William Wallace et encore moins sur ses essais d’introduire le calcul infinitesimal continental dans les Iles britanniques au debut du 1P”’ siecle. Une lettre qu’il avait &rite a George Peacock en 1833 revtle beaucoup de faits interessantes concemant son r81e dans la reforme des mathematiques britanniques.
    [Show full text]
  • No Humble Pie: the Origins and Usage of a Statistical Chart
    Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics Winter 2005, Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 353–368 No Humble Pie: The Origins and Usage of a Statistical Chart Ian Spence University of Toronto William Playfair’s pie chart is more than 200 years old and yet its intellectual ori- gins remain obscure. The inspiration likely derived from the logic diagrams of Llull, Bruno, Leibniz, and Euler, which were familiar to William because of the instruction of his mathematician brother John. The pie chart is broadly popular but—despite its common appeal—most experts have not been seduced, and the academy has advised avoidance; nonetheless, the masses have chosen to ignore this advice. This commentary discusses the origins of the pie chart and the appro- priate uses of the form. Keywords: Bruno, circle chart, Euler, Leibniz, Llull, logic diagrams, pie chart, Playfair 1. Introduction The pie chart is more than two centuries old. The diagram first appeared (Playfair, 1801) as an element of two larger graphical displays (see Figure 1 for one instance) in The Statistical Breviary, whose charts portrayed the areas, populations, and rev- enues of European states. William Playfair had previously devised the bar chart and was first to advocate and popularize the use of the line graph to display time series in statistics (Playfair, 1786). The pie chart was his last major graphical invention. Playfair was an accomplished and talented adapter of the ideas of others, and although we may be confident that we know his sources of inspiration in the case of the bar chart and line graph, the intellectual motivations for the pie chart and its parent, the circle chart, remain obscure.
    [Show full text]
  • Records of the Scottish Church History Society
    THE LESLIE CONTROVERSY, 1805 By IAN D. L. CLARK, M.A. IN the Spring of the year r805, after a violent struggle between rival factions in Edinburgh, John Leslie was appointed to the Chair of Mathe­ matics in the university, and the Moderate Party in the Church of Scotland sustained its first major defeat for more than fifty years. Historians have rightly interpreted this incident as a landmark in the story of the eventual decline and fall of the Moderates as an ecclesiastical party, and perhaps rather more controversially as a triumph for liberal and enlightened opinion in Scotland; but they have, I think, failed to understand the deeper significance of what was happening. Ecclesiastical and secular politics played an important part in the struggle, but what was really at stake was "moderatism" as a theological and ecclesiological system. In the arguments put forward by the opposing parties two radically different religious positions came into conflict. The whole framework of r8th century "rational" religion was shaken by Leslie's supporters, and many of the presuppositions upon which Moderatism had hitherto rested were destroyed. At the same time the opponents of the Moderate Party profited from the disastrous way in which the Moderate leaders handled the case. Thus from the point of view both of church politics and of theology Leslie's appointment was to have a considerable and direct influence. If this claim seems extravagant, consider some of the issues at stake. Not only did the Moderates become involved in an unusually bitter contest with their traditional evangelical opponents, but for the first time they forfeited the good opinion of the educated and professional classes in Edinburgh, and what was perhaps even more significant, they lost the support of several of the most prominent government officers in Scotland.
    [Show full text]